Partial Boil - why not half the Extract ???

Reading the section on partial boils in "Brewing Classic Styles" and doing the calculations in that section (pages 36-37) I see the following.

A total of 9.75 lbs of Light LME is being used but only 3.75lbs are being boiled. Then the other 6lbs are put into the pot at the very end.

THEN its cooled and deluded!

What is that ??

I would think in the simplest form it would be half and half ???

Sorry (read my signature LOL)

Well, you could sure do that if you want. You could also add all the extract at the beginning if you wanted, also.

The reason to add less at the beginning is to take advantage of the benefits late extract addition provides- less carmelization of the wort, less darkening of the color of the wort, and better hops utilization.

There isn't any real rule about any of this. When I started extract brewing, all of the instructions always had you add all of the extract at the beginning of the boil. When many brewers said, "Hey, my extract batches are so DARK- what can I do to lighten up the color?", we learned about adding the bulk of the extract at the end of the boil. This definitely lightened up the color of our brew (it's weird drinking a dark colored pale ale!) and also increased hops utilization. So, now, it's pretty mainstream to do that.

Thanks Yooper. I'm at the knowledge point that I keep reading slightly different things but have no base of knowledge to go on.

All that Yoop said is true, but the amount of malt in your boil should be equal to the gals of water to maintain a relatively even 1.040 gravity and maximize the hop utilization.

1 gal water to 1 lb malt, 2 gals water to 2 lbs malt...got it?


12121...another full house...

Not according to Palmer in his book Brewing Classic Styles.

If you look at Taddy Porter (Pg 155) you are boiling 3 gallons with 1.91 lbs of Extract.

His example (pg37) has 3 gallons with 3.75 lbs of extract in the boil.

Not arguing just stating what the book has - perhaps I'm wrong??

His Taddy Porter has 2lb 10 oz of steeping grains and 1.91 lb of extract in the boil. then add the other 4.89lbs of Extract at the very end.

Grinder12000 said:

Not according to Palmer in his book Brewing Classic Styles.

If you look at Taddy Porter (Pg 155) you are boiling 3 gallons with 1.91 lbs of Extract.

His example (pg37) has 3 gallons with 3.75 lbs of extract in the boil.

Not arguing just stating what the book has - perhaps I'm wrong??

His Taddy Porter has 2lb 10 oz of steeping grains and 1.91 lb of extract in the boil. then add the other 4.89lbs of Extract at the very end.

Click to expand...

OK, try to follow...

3.75 lbs of LME is equal to 3 lbs of DME.

2 lbs 10 oz of grain is about equal to 1.5 lbs DME.

One would say that come out to 4.5 lbs DME in 3 gals of water, but not really because the LME and DME have different gravities.

In the book he states at the beginning of #3 that you want the wort composition approximately the same in the partial as you do the full boil and in #4 that the yield from the steeping grain is only an estimate.

In Recipator, they state that steeping only extracts approximately 40% of the sugars from the grains, so the yield will be lower than saying we used 1.5 lbs of DME (in the calculations above).

The recipe says the preboil gravity of Taddy's is 1.044.

Papazian's TCJOHB says 1 lb of malt in 1 gal of water is 1.040.

While BYO uses 1.045 for DME and 1.033-1.037 for LME.

So now you have 3.75 lbs of LME at 1.035 (average) and 1.5 lbs of DME at 1.045...that's just about 1.040...hmmm...

This effectively brings the ratio closer to the Papazian (1.040) calculations that I have been using since 1994.

Now THAT is what I'm talking about - thanks.

You are welcome.

Is there a benefit to late extract addition for DME too, or is that more for LME?

I'm still working on all the science behind this.

With LME one of the benefits is to create a lighter color with late addition (not that that answers ANY question but I feel smarter after saying it :cross

The purpose of late addition is to reduce carmelization which results in a lighter colored beer.

Subsequently, anything you do (out of the ordinary method) may have 1 or more desired/undesired effect.

With the LA technique you can use fewer bittering hops as long as you keep the malt water ratio about 1:1.

If you use more malt than water the density increases and you have to use more hops.

The same goes in the other direction too, but I believe hops need some malt to aide in bitterness extraction.